ATHENS — International amity and the cherished right of Europeans to travel and work freely across the European Union is being seriously tested by the slow collapse of almost every Old World economy.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said this week what some other European leaders must be thinking. He threatened to tear up a key freedom of movement pact that the United Kingdom made years ago with the EU. Contingencies might be required, he said, involving emergency powers to severely restrict the ability of Greeks to travel to Britain and to work there.

Cameron reckoned that draconian measures that would put Greeks on the same footing as most people from the Third World would be required if Greece's grave economic problems lead to a so-called Grexit from the euro and then a "Grexodus" of emigrants from the country.

Speaking almost as if Greeks carried the plague, Cameron told a parliamentary committee, "I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to keep our country safe, to keep our banking system strong, to keep our economy robust. At the end of the day, as prime minister, that is your first and foremost duty."

At the other end of the spectrum, Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, whose government may be in as dire straits as Greece, astonished his unemployed countrymen recently by actually urging them to "leave their comfort zone" and emigrate. According to the Financial Times, which carried his remarks, as many as 150,000 Portuguese have already reached the same conclusion and emigrated last year.

The right to travel and work within the 26 countries that comprise the Schengen Area is a toxic political issue for Europe's have-nots because millions of their citizens have seized the chance to improve their lives by moving elsewhere within the EU.

Large numbers of Poles, for example, now work in Britain and elsewhere in western Europe. London, especially, has become a magnet for many young Europeans. Curiously, there are so many French kids working in the British capital now that in some parts of the city, more French can be heard in the streets than English.

However, it's the Greeks, faced with 22 per cent unemployment — much higher for those under 24 — whose rate of emigration to other EU countries has increased the most. The Greek numbers shot up by 80 per cent last year, putting it well ahead of Spain, whose number of migrants increased by 50 per cent.

Surveys in Greece have found that a majority of the population is considering its options. However, many Greeks told me it was difficult for them to leave: they were either too old, their family ties were too strong or they owned homes for which they would get little if they left.

As well, the Greek media has been reporting about rising anti-Greek sentiment in those few parts of Europe that are still fairly prosperous, and jobs are becoming much harder to find elsewhere because most European economies were stagnant or shrinking.

The Greeks are not the only ones whose freedom of movement is under threat. Because many EU countries are convinced that border checks between Greece and Turkey and between Italy, Spain and Africa are far too lax, the first new checks on the movement of people between EU member countries in many years are being quietly imposed.

Emergency powers put on the books to thwart terrorists are now being used to stop those fleeing the Arab Spring and wars in Africa and South Asia by sneaking into the EU through the backdoor.

Even Canadians can get caught up in the dragnet. For example, while travelling by rail recently through Italy and Germany via Austria, I was challenged multiple times by police officers from all three countries. For the first time in more than 20 years I — along with other passengers — was expected to produce my passport. A lot of time was wasted answering questions such as whether I was able to support myself and if I intended to settle and work in Europe.

Similar questions have been put to me several times by British immigration officers over the past year. The three or four minutes that asking and answering such queries requires helps explain why it now often takes several hours for those without EU passports or ID cards to navigate immigration at Heathrow Airport.

More of the same and worse can be expected as more EU countries react to the downward spiral of their economies by bringing back stringent border practices that seemed gone forever until a few months ago.

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